Help Save Child Slaves in Africa
Children Are Being Forced into Labour on Cacao Plantations
Why are Cocoa Companies Using Child Slaves?
The owners of cacao plantations use the children to do their work. Cacao farms in West Africa are using kids for a cheap workforce. They make the children work to support their families, and some child slaves who do not want to work are sold to farmers. When the children are on the cacao farms, they may not see their families for years or maybe forever. The worst forms of child labor have plagued the industry, and they get low wages, if any, meaning farmers cannot pay workers for the labor needed to harvest the crop. The owners teach the children how to work and how to cut cocoa beans off trees. Growing farms face the realities of rural poverty. The workers have poor health, almost no water to drink because it's too dirty, and almost no food to eat that could keep them healthy. Kids working on the farms help the owners keep prices low, but it severely harms the children.
Child Slave in West Africa
The kids get beans for the plantation owners to sell to big chocolate companies.
Image SourceWhat are People Doing to Children in the Cocoa Farms?
The children who don’t do what they are told could be sold to other people, but it is not cheap to buy them, especially if they work hard. If the children try to escape from the cocoa farms, they get beaten and sometimes sent to jail. Some children get $2 each day for the work they do. The Western African children are surrounded by intense poverty. They needed to grow food crops for the families' owners and for them to eat, but they have to eat last. More than 70% of the world’s supply of cocoa comes from two countries nestled on the southern shore of West Africa. In conclusion, child slaves work hard to do things to stay alive.
Child Chopping Cacao Beans
Kids struggle to do difficult work like cutting cacao beans everyday. If they don't, they will be punished by slave owners.
Image SourceWhat Companies are Trying to Help Stop Child Slavery?
Companies Trying to End Child Slavery
Companies are trying to stop slave owners from making kids slaves.
What Are the Companies Going to Do to Help?
Food Empowerment Project
The F.E.P. works to educate the public about choosing foods that are not made with the use of child slaves.
Image SourceMap of Western Africa
This is where many of the cocoa farms where the child slavery happens are located.
Kids Use Toxic Products and Spraying on Trees
Works Cited
"Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry." Child Labor and Slavery in the Chocolate Industry. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
"Child Labour in Cocoa." ICI Cocoa. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
Clarke, Joe Sandler. "Child Labour on Nestlé Farms: Chocolate Giant's Problems Continue." The Guardian. Guardian News and Media, 02 Sept. 2015. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.
"International Labor Rights Forum." Cocoa. Web. 30 Mar. 2016.